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Canadian Arctic Exploration

Please join us Tuesday, September 26 at the Los Alamos Nature Center for a presentation by Bill Priedhorsky and Melissa Bartlett, as they share their experience in the Canadian Arctic.

Having seen seals, penguins, icebergs, and eternal snow of the Antarctic and southern end of the world, Bill Priedhorsky and Melissa Bartlett headed in the opposite direction, due north from New Mexico, to explore the Canadian Arctic. They stayed at Bathurst Inlet Lodge, a historic if rustic facility at the northern end of mainland Canada, about 40 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Majority ownership in the lodge is held by the local Inuit, who took quiet pleasure in showing off their special corner of the world. A few weeks before arrival, the inlet was frozen shore to shore. But by the time we arrived, temperatures were peaking close to 80 F, and the permafrost tundra was in bloom.Called the barren lands, we explored the wealth of tiny tundra plants, and lush grasses that grow in the summer and battled the beastly mosquitoes. We saw the amazing geology of a Rift Valley - the inlet - that varied wildly from one island to the next. There were white wolves, muskox, moose. and caribou roaming the tundra, grizzly bears to be avoided, vast expanses of uninhabited space 300 miles from the nearest road, and the biggest fish that Bill had caught in his life That the Inuit could survive in this treeless landscape with only bone, hide, sinew, rocks and ice as resources spoke to their adaptability and sheer toughness. Bathurst is a special part of the world, one unlikely to remain the same as the gold and diamond wealth of Nunatuk, Canada’s newest territory, is opened up.

Social at 6:45, reports of recent and upcoming trips at 7:00pm. Program at 7:30pm.